AFRIPOL

AFRIPOL, formally the African Union Mechanism for Police Cooperation, is a continental police cooperation body established through the 2014 Algiers Declaration and formally constituted under the 2017 AFRIPOL Statute, beginning operations that same year and headquartered in Algiers, Algeria. It functions as a specialized technical institution of the African Union under the Union's Department of Political Affairs, Peace and Security, mandated to strengthen and harmonize the capacities of law enforcement agencies across the African Union's member states and to support national police services in preventing and combating transnational organized crime, terrorism, cybercrime and other emerging threats to continental security. Rather than conducting its own investigations or operations, AFRIPOL works chiefly through cooperation frameworks, standard setting and capacity building among the police forces of its member states, operating under the motto Enhancing African Police Cooperation. Its creation reflected a deliberate effort by the African Union to build a continent wide police cooperation mechanism comparable to those already established in Europe and elsewhere, adapted to Africa's own institutional and security context.